Hey! Unto You

Do yourself a favor this holiday season and go find a copy of Barbara Robinson's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I know you read it a long time ago - I did too - but it is worthy of your attention again now as an adult no matter your religious bent.

A neighbor of ours gave the book to my daughter this season and since my daughter was home with the flu one day, we sat down and read the whole thing front to back. The book is about a Christmas pageant somewhere in small town America where the church community is up in arms because a young family of riffraff has taken over the pageant. The story is so funny that I had to put it down several times because I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe.

It isn't the humor though that prompts my urge to you - it is the greater message of how our society has romanticized the story of an event that, while miraculous and monumental, was lowly and hard. "You hear all about the nice warm stable with all the animals breathing, and the sweet-smelling hay - but that doesn't change the fact that they put Mary in a barn," says the mother late in the story.

Away in a manger, no crib for a bed (hum along)...

The Christmas Pageant is, of course, about the birth of Jesus. But the protagonist, a young school girl, comes to a poignant understanding; "It was about a new baby, and his mother and father who were in a lot of trouble - no money, no place to go, no doctor, nobody they knew." We would do well to remember that as we put up our own nativities this season.

This story is about humility, generosity, kindness, and truth. It will ground you during this time of harried shopping and baking and flare. Make time to read it - I promise you'll be glad.